If you would like to participate, PM me your name and address, and I'll start a list. If we can get at least 10 people confirmed, I'll start the tour.

- After using the board for one week, you must ship the board to the next person with tracking. - Shipping order will be determined based on zip code and lowest overall cost to the group.- You can reply to this thread with a short review if you want.

Newer members might have to send some kind of deposit as collateral before the board is shipped to them. But I get to decide who participates in the tour. It's my board after all.

It certainly takes a while, I had it down to about 2 per minute using wire to wrap the stems, your fingers get tired at that pace though, and that doesn't include spring trimming. I think it took me about 3 hours to do mine, but that included adding lube.

Great job khaangaaroo, what did you use to lock the stems? And did you trim the springs or leave them at 80grams?

Now this is rather interesting! Time to do some research on this mod even before I consider participating

Simply put, it creates a short travel Clear.

To get Ergo Clear, you have to trim the springs to bring spring pressures down, which is how I run them.

Oh, thank you for the information. I guess I can just throw in o-rings into my Clears to get a similar feeling

That shortens the overall travel, it does nothing to raise the activation point, which is what this does. Your switches/keys take about 4mm of travel to actuate, Jailhouse Blues require less than 2mm. O-rings only come into effect after the switch actuates.

That shortens the overall travel, it does nothing to raise the activation point, which is what this does. Your switches/keys take about 4mm of travel to actuate, Jailhouse Blues require less than 2mm. O-rings only come into effect after the switch actuates.

To organise collateral, i think they should pay the value of the board into your PayPal account and that money is returned once the board has arrived at its next destination. If you both gift then it will be free.

To organise collateral, i think they should pay the value of the board into your PayPal account and that money is returned once the board has arrived at its next destination. If you both gift then it will be free.

That's what I suggested. No one seemed to be down for that...haha. So no fresh members on this tour yet, only vets.

I am afraid that I will like it, and have another hours-long project on my hands if I decide to go for it.

The casual user will not have the time or energy to do such a tedious mod. But, it might generate some business for somebody like Small Fry who does things for hire.

Logged

"It's hard to see the bar anymore since it's been pushed so far down the last few years, but President Trump's behavior over the weekend was a new low." — current FBI agent

"We have a Russian asset sitting in the Oval Office. There is no fathomable explanation for why the president said these things. Letting Russia off the hook for bullying smaller countries and then blaming Obama for it? It's directly out of the Putin playbook." — former senior Justice Department official

”No question” that Trump is behaving like a “spy for the Russians. The evidence is so overwhelming that in my 35 years in intelligence, I have never seen anything so certain." — Glenn Carle, former CIA covert operative

Have you photographed the glued Blues with Clears and/or Browns side-by-side? I'm curious how similar it becomes to Clears.

If you glue the white part of Blues about 3/4's of the way up, the actuation point would be the same as any other Cherry switch, including Clears.

Surprisingly, Clears have a slightly larger bump for a bit more tactility. However, at some point, you get diminishing returns (you can only get so much tactility) and the slightly smaller bump also means fewer stuck switches compared to Clears.

Honored to be the first tester of the Jailhouse Blue QFR, here is my take on the board.

It feels very similar to the MX brown but it doesn't bottom out. Basically, take the MX blue and minus the click and the clack.Because of the additional piece added to the stem I guess it makes the stem a bit too long, that's why it doesn't bottom out. I've used it for about 5 days for gaming and typing. Gaming: Didn't really notice a difference, but I suppose the shorter press may be better for double tap?Typing: Very pleasant to type on, very quiet too so it was nice for the people in the office. It's like the brown with a very soft landing pad.

Video demonstrating the sound (feels a lot louder than it should, with the jailhouse it's much easier to type quietly without producing much sound, I pressed the keys with a fair amount of strength in the video)

Verdict:a very neat modification, good for those who enjoy the brown but want to reduce the noise generated from bottoming out the switches. definitely requires a lot of work to modify each switch, and if you don't do it perfectly there is a slight difference between the switches, I can still hear a faint click sound on some of the keys.

Hrm, I'm interested. I LOVE MX Browns, and experimenting with similar switches is interesting. Would also love to try Ergo Clears at some point. I see that there's a Massachusetts person somewhere in the Boston area drawn on the map already. I wonder if I could join in with them to have a brief test out since they happen to be nearby.

EDIT: Well, just checked the spreadsheet (didn't realize zip codes were listed), and the board's already away Oh well =/

The first thing that I need to comment on is the CM Quickfire Rapid keyboard itself. I am not a regular user of small boards, by any means (my daily drivers are battleships, if not aircraft carriers), and have never owned a board in this form factor. I was constantly reaching for the number pad, and more importantly, the Enter key on the numpad, the one I use all the time, in preference to the proper one.

The board itself feels very solid and well-made. I am quite impressed with its quality, knowing that it is a low-price keyboard. Its small sturdy footprint and lack of ornamentation might make it my first choice in buying an item of this type, provided that I came with the switches I wanted. Having said that, the F4 is dead and the backspace feels bad, way too stiff and not smooth either. Cooler Master's QC problem, or something else after the fact?

The first time through Aqua Key Test, all keys registered properly, except F4.

After writing that, this:

ARRRRRRGGGHH! About 2/3 of the way through typing this summary, working in Word 2010, and I pressed Control-S to save my work and I was bounced out and logged off of Windows 7! WTF! Both mice were completely dead, too. Later, after a couple of reboots and hot-plugs, I have decided to give up. Subsequent tests such as Aqua Key hinted at a problem centered around the area at the top center ("U" - "7" - "F5" etc) but I couldn't really pinpoint it by pressing keys. I can’t abide not knowing when I will get an unexpected shutdown, it is scary!

I left it on the shelf for 48 hours and hot-plugged it back in. All seemed to be fine, for now. This will be my last entry typed on this board. Although I really like it, my paranoia is too great. I trust that all future testers will report on similar activity, so that we can know whether this was just a random “me” event, or whether there is a gremlin in the works. Update, after working for about 5-10 minutes – crash!

Now, about the switches. I wish that I still had Hashbaz’s tester, to feel these “jailhouse blues” alongside some of their cousins, most notably the browns, clears, and ergo-clears. With the click removed, these are proper tactile switches. I am particularly eager to understand the similarities and differences in comparison between these and clears. Do any of you have both? And could you describe them against each other?

Surprisingly, they do not feel particularly light, I was expecting a feather touch. They are not overly heavy, but more resistant than I was expecting. The only Cherry MX board that I currently own is the G80-11900 with linear blacks, and the touch of these is lighter than them, but the difference in the stroke makes it hard to quantify.

Surely, the nicest thing about them is how high the activation point is. That may account for part of the heavier feel, since the activation is concentrated in a smaller distance than usual and/or there is not that momentum-building “dead zone” at the top of the stroke before activation.

These switches will take some getting used to, but, afterwards, I am sure that a touch typist could really gain some benefit from the short throw.

These are switches that are almost "difficult" to bottom out, since they travel so far after activation. I just had to try it putting pads or O-rings on a couple of keys. The O-ring did not make much difference, but a soft landing pad was nice. I prefer landing pads with blues, anyway. If you are typing efficiently, you will probably seldom go all the way down.

Summary: I really like these switches. I have had a blue board and sold it because the sound was too annoying, but this seems to remove the bad attributes and improve the action with the higher activation point. When I do get around to buying another Cherry board, I was looking at clears, but this might be the better option. And since I have other projects in line, this might be one to farm out, if someone would do it at a low price.

Great idea, great solution, great community service by circulating this tester. Thanks !

« Last Edit: Thu, 23 May 2013, 07:48:24 by fohat.digs »

Logged

"It's hard to see the bar anymore since it's been pushed so far down the last few years, but President Trump's behavior over the weekend was a new low." — current FBI agent

"We have a Russian asset sitting in the Oval Office. There is no fathomable explanation for why the president said these things. Letting Russia off the hook for bullying smaller countries and then blaming Obama for it? It's directly out of the Putin playbook." — former senior Justice Department official

”No question” that Trump is behaving like a “spy for the Russians. The evidence is so overwhelming that in my 35 years in intelligence, I have never seen anything so certain." — Glenn Carle, former CIA covert operative

Eek, sorry to hear about the crashes. I wonder if it has something to do with the malfunctioning F4 (probably from my poor soldering work.) I know some combinations of Ctrl/Alt/F4 will close stuff, and even open up a prompt to shut down windows. I might have to have to postpone the tour while I fix it if the next person has these issues as well.

Eek, sorry to hear about the crashes. I wonder if it has something to do with the malfunctioning F4 (probably from my poor soldering work.) I know some combinations of Ctrl/Alt/F4 will close stuff, and even open up a prompt to shut down windows. I might have to have to postpone the tour while I fix it if the next person has these issues as well.

I love keyboard shortcuts. To save and close a document in Word, I will do "Control-S" then "Control-W" and finally "Alt-F4"

Also F5 is very popular with me.

Logged

"It's hard to see the bar anymore since it's been pushed so far down the last few years, but President Trump's behavior over the weekend was a new low." — current FBI agent

"We have a Russian asset sitting in the Oval Office. There is no fathomable explanation for why the president said these things. Letting Russia off the hook for bullying smaller countries and then blaming Obama for it? It's directly out of the Putin playbook." — former senior Justice Department official

”No question” that Trump is behaving like a “spy for the Russians. The evidence is so overwhelming that in my 35 years in intelligence, I have never seen anything so certain." — Glenn Carle, former CIA covert operative

Unless you cut the springs, you end up with an 80gram actuation, and these were not cut. Cutting 2() coils off the end brings it down to normal blue/red/brown pressures.

Ahh. I would want that, too. This is not a trivial mod, but one that might ultimately be worth it.

And in comparison to clears, it is the high activation point that could not be achieved without the help of that white piece on the plunger?

No, the plunger is the key.The mod wedges it as far down as possible, this is what moves the activation point.

Clears actually have slightly more tactility, but it's hard to notice. This extra tactility is also why Ergo Clears sometimes stick. If you could force the stem to sit lower, then yes, you could replicate the short travel of Jailhouse Blues, but your keycaps would sit lower into your keyboard. I'm still looking for an easy way to do that.

as the first tester I also had some random issues hot plugging the board, at that time I thought it was just my computer acting up so I didnt really take note of it.I remember I plugged it into the USB port while my computer was locked, first few attempts the computer didnt pick up the device, and once it picked it up it was behaving very strangely. Some keys would work but a few keys when pressed would output a bunch of random characters. I eventually got it to work just by replugging it, and once it worked it continued to work just fine. So I still think it's probably the computer fault? Not sure.

Good to read other people's thoughts on the board, and onto the next person we go!

as the first tester I also had some random issues hot plugging the board, at that time I thought it was just my computer acting up so I didnt really take note of it.I remember I plugged it into the USB port while my computer was locked, first few attempts the computer didnt pick up the device, and once it picked it up it was behaving very strangely. Some keys would work but a few keys when pressed would output a bunch of random characters. I eventually got it to work just by replugging it, and once it worked it continued to work just fine. So I still think it's probably the computer fault? Not sure.

Good to read other people's thoughts on the board, and onto the next person we go!

I have a mid-range system with a new-ish Gigabyte motherboard and AMD 4100 CPU.

I generally use a USB hub because the back of my computer case is hard to access. I use a powered USB 3.0 hub and a non-powered USB 2.0 hub. The powered hub was giving me some keyboard trouble on boot-up, so I keep the keyboard hooked up to the unpowered hub.

Since it worked several times before acting up, I have some suspicion that it is the keyboard and not the computer. The fact that it shut down the mice that were connected to the same hub was troubling, but all my original gear seems to be working properly again.

Logged

"It's hard to see the bar anymore since it's been pushed so far down the last few years, but President Trump's behavior over the weekend was a new low." — current FBI agent

"We have a Russian asset sitting in the Oval Office. There is no fathomable explanation for why the president said these things. Letting Russia off the hook for bullying smaller countries and then blaming Obama for it? It's directly out of the Putin playbook." — former senior Justice Department official

”No question” that Trump is behaving like a “spy for the Russians. The evidence is so overwhelming that in my 35 years in intelligence, I have never seen anything so certain." — Glenn Carle, former CIA covert operative

Khaangaaroo, could you perhaps briefly mention (or post a link about) how you get the switches open on this board. I've got a QFR but I was under the impression that getting to the internals of the switch on this board required desoldering. Is that correct? I have the time/energy to try a similar experiment, but not so much if I have to bust out the soldering iron.

"It's hard to see the bar anymore since it's been pushed so far down the last few years, but President Trump's behavior over the weekend was a new low." — current FBI agent

"We have a Russian asset sitting in the Oval Office. There is no fathomable explanation for why the president said these things. Letting Russia off the hook for bullying smaller countries and then blaming Obama for it? It's directly out of the Putin playbook." — former senior Justice Department official

”No question” that Trump is behaving like a “spy for the Russians. The evidence is so overwhelming that in my 35 years in intelligence, I have never seen anything so certain." — Glenn Carle, former CIA covert operative

Sorry for the lack of updates on my part. Work has been crushing for the past week. However, CPTBadAss asked me to hold onto it until next week since he wouldn't be able to pick it up until 6/3, so this shouldn't be delay the rest of the tour.

The board arrived and I plan on doing a full review this weekend and shipping the board out on Monday. I've typed on the keyboard, but I have not plugged it into a machine yet due to the issues that fohat.digs reported. I'll of course plug it in when I give the board a full work over and I'll report any issues I run into.